anyone paying .005 plus or minus with there own money is getting fucked beyond belief. if you pay over .003 plus or minus even with 100k a month vol its a joke. hell ib is .005 all in which if you take liquidity all day long equal to .002 plus ecn fees. the only advantage using a prop firm is the software of many day trading companies like assent or echo is more condusive for actual heavy vol day trading with hot keys and such. but anyone trading 5-10k shares a day is better off with ib.

that is just over $400/ month on commissions if you just trade on trade per day. for high volume traders.

commissions can easily over $1000/month just on commissions.

you can lease a store in a real business with $1000/month expense. or $12,000/year just on commissions if you doing this like real business.

the exchange and broker just move electrons. paying commissions and broker trades against you too. so you see the edge the market makers and brokers have. whether you lose or make money at the end of the month, the market makers and brokers or exchange get their commissions and fees.

Quote from TraderD72:

I know a few guys that trade their own money at one of the well known "prop" firms.

Their commissions seem to be in the .005/share area and they have the standard 4 to 1 margin.

What are the advantages of this set up compared to trading with Iteractive Brokers (for example) as the costs seem to be in the same ball park?

I can see if you had a mentor or a group of successful traders to be apart of and learn from but besides that????